Rondo
by Sonata Appassionata
Summary: At age five, Andy makes a pinky promise and promises Bella that she'll never leave. The thing about promises is that they're exhausting. No femslash.


**At age five, Andy makes a pinky promise and promises Bella that she'll never leave her. The thing about promises is that they're exhausting. No femslash. **

**For the Marauders Era Challenge. Prompts: exhausting, Reducto, "it's not like I meant it to happen". **

**Young Black sisters because they can be adorable. **

X

"Andy!" Bella shrieks. Her fists clenched tight and shaking with fury. "Andy! Stop! You -"

_Crash!_

Andy collides with Mother's desk. Before Bella's very own eyes, Andy crashes into the wall with a scream and falls in a heap of pink onto the ground, the toy broomstick in pieces. A heavy china vase falls with a crash, shards scattering across the ground.

"Andy!" Bella shouts, and as she does she is running, running to where Andy is, prone on the ground. She grabs her sister around the middle and drags her upright. She smacks the dust out of Andy's bright brown, rather rumpled curls and spins her around to face the wreckage.

"That's Mother's favourite vase, Andy! The one with all our relatives names on it! What are we going to do now?"

"It wasn't like I w-wanted it to happen, B-Bella, I d-didn't mean to, I s-swear!" Andy's bright blue eyes are welling with tears. Her tiny hands find Bella's arm and she pushes her warm head into Bella's chest, quivering. Bella is thinking fast. She knows what Mother is capable of when she's mad, and Andy smells of pink baby soap and feels so _tiny_ in her arms, and now Bella is the grown up and she has to _do something_.

"Alright." She takes hold of Andy's hands and tugs her upright. "Lacey the elf is taking a nap now, but when she wakes we'll ask her to fix all this, alright? It's okay. Lacey's nice. She won't blab to Mother."

Andy's eyes are wide, her mouth open as she stares up at Bella. "Promise?" she pleads.

Bella rolls her eyes. "Promise."

Andy flops down onto the ground and stares at the remnants of the vase. After a moment, she straightens up and frowns at Bella, her tears gone.

"Why does Mum like that vase so much, Bella?"

Bella sighs and smacks Andy's head lightly.

"Because they've got our ancestors names on them, and we should be proud of being free from Muggle filth!" Bella leaps to her feet and frowns down at Andy. Andy can be so stupid sometimes.

"But why are Muggles filth?"

"Because they're Muggles!" Bella shouts. Impatience rises in her chest and she feels like strangling Andy. Why _is_ Andy asking all these stupid questions?

"B-but the ones next door are really nice, Bella! I d-don't think they're filth!"

_"_Listen to me!" Bella grabs Andy's shoulders. Andy shakes his head, mouth screwed shut, but her shoulders are starting to shake and Bella feels like a monster but something inside her starts to _hurt_ and she ploughs on, because she's Bella and she's always ploughing on.

_"_Listen to me!_" _She shake Andy so hard so that her head rocks backward and forward on his shoulders. _"_Muggles are filth, Andy!"

Andy's eyes are filling with tears again. "B-but they aren't, Bella! M-maybe t-they a-a-aren't!"

Something shifts inside Bella. She stops shouting and takes hold of Andy's hands. Bella may not cry when they fought, but Andy is different and still smells like baby powder, and Bella thinks that best friends, first and foremost, are _friends_. Because Mother and Father are out doing whatever adults did when they went out, as usual, and the Lacey the old elf is nowhere to be seen, and Cissy is still a baby and in short, Andy is Bella's _best friend._

"I'm sorry, Andy."

She hugs Andy. Andy's small hands curl into her own, and Bella grins, in spite of herself. "But don't go to play with the neighbour Muggles, okay? You can play with me. Promise?"

"Okay." Andy looks up, eyes still bright, and joins pinky fingers with Bella. "Promise."

X

The day Andromeda cries and screams at her sisters and parents before storming out out of the house with a broomstick and her truck and never coming back, she left her journal behind.

The house is chaos. Mother is in the kitchen, shrieking something indiscernible, mingling with the resonating fury of Father's ranting. Narcissa erupts into a fresh wave of tears — Cissy is twelve, Merlin's sake — and throws herself onto her bed, choking with fury, and Bellatrix snatches up the little yellowed book and stands by the window, hands shaking, muscles wound tight up and fancies that she can't feel the sharp sting of the wind.

"Reducto!"

The journal shatters in the wind as Bellatrix releases it, down through the ripping air and into the darkness. For a moment, Bellatrix just stands there, panting hard, because _it's not like I meant it to happen, Andy, honest, I didn't, not anymore than you did. _

But Andy ca no longer hear her anymore. Andy is dead.

The moment passes, and Bellatrix sinks down onto her bed. Because promises are exhausting, and the strength of the spell has left her quite drained.


End file.
